Candle, Candle, Burning Bright

Hi there! It's been a bit since I've posted but I have been busy.

On the weekend, I attended the Stampin' Up! Fall Conference in Winnipeg with my upline and best friend, Charlene. There was one session on Friday evening and two on Saturday.

Friday was a "play" session where you could bring non demonstrators with hopes that they would be inspired to become a demonstrator. We got a chance to play with different tools as we moved from station to station around the room. It was a bit hectic at some stations but good fun all the same!

Saturday morning was a business session and the afternoon session was another "play" session for demonstrators only. I have some neat creations to show you from the conference but you'll have to wait until another post for those!

The rest of the weekend was spent babysitting my beautiful granddaughter. We just can't get enough of her! My mother was coming over to our house for supper to celebrate her 89th birthday so Raine was dressed up in a special dress I had bought her. Of course, I had to snap a few shots of her . . .

She was a little shy at first but she had Bunny to comfort her!

She can't resist playing on the keyboard when she comes over!

My mother really enjoyed watching Raine! I was able to snap a few candids of her.

I was hoping to get a good picture of them together but Raine was a little bit shy around her so we didn't force the issue. I did manage to catch them in a couple of pictures together with the help of people holding her!

Here's my mother with her cake and a little sidekick:

All in all, it was a pleasant get together!

The last few days, I have been preparing some cards and planning for my last stamping class before Christmas. Unfortunately, I can't show you pictures of those items yet because it would ruin the surprise! I promise I'll post those after December 5.

Tonight, after work, I got a chance to try out an idea that I had been rolling around in my mind for over a week. I wanted to use the Star Framelits to create a festive tea light holder.
This was my first attempt at a 3D item so please be kind!

I knew that I wanted to use both Gold Foil and Gold Glimmer papers but I wanted to be sure that my idea would work BEFORE cutting! I made one mock up with scrap paper and another with Whisper White before I was satisfied with my design.

I used two of the star framelits–the smallest and the third largest–to cut a template for the star shapes so that each one would be identical. Then, for each star, I cut one from gold foil and one from gold glimmer paper. I also cut four small squares of vellum, which I trimmed into pentagon shapes.

Using Crafty Owl's Box Buster (a handy online tool for calculating measurements for boxes created with the Envelope Punch Board) I got the measurements for a box that was 2 x 2 x 3/4" in size. I created the box using my Envelope Punch Board and Gold Foil. (If you have never used the Box Buster, give it a try. It is a wonderful tool for using with the Envelope Punch Board.)

I then glued the pentagon shaped pieces of vellum to one star of each of the four star pairs. I glued the Gold Glimmer stars on the inside of the box so that they would really catch the sparkle from the candle. I glued the Gold Foil stars to the outside of the box and pressed together with the Gold Glimmer stars to act like a sandwich with the box in the middle!

I was quite pleased with the way it turned out! What do you think?

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